Avery felt someone’s gaze on her. She looked up to see Caroline Dodd-Radson—Caroline Dodd now, she reminded herself, since the divorce. Eris’s mom looked as gorgeous as ever in a screen-printed jacquard dress with a layered skirt. But the glow of the lanterns bobbing in the room picked out silver threads in her red-gold hair, the same bold shade as Eris’s; and new lines were etched on her face. Her eyes were staring mournfully into Avery’s.
Avery didn’t think of herself as a coward, yet in that moment she wanted nothing more than to turn and run—anything to avoid making eye contact with the woman whose daughter Avery had allowed to fall. Because no matter how things had played out on the roof that night, Eris had died at Avery’s apartment. Avery was the one who’d opened the trapdoor, and now the worst had happened; and she had to live with the consequences for the rest of her life.
She nodded at Caroline in a silent gesture of remorse, and grief. After a moment, Eris’s mom inclined her head in reply, as if to say that she knew what was in Avery’s heart, and understood.
“Is that Caroline Dodd? Didn’t her daughter die in this apartment?” Avery heard a voice murmur behind her. A group of older women were bent together, their eyes cutting furiously toward Eris’s mom. They seemed unaware of Avery, who stood there in frozen hurt.
“How shocking,” another of them said, utterly placid and calm, the way people are when shocking things do not touch them at all.
Avery’s hand tightened around her fizzy pink cocktail, and she retreated toward the library, away from this loud room with its vicious canned gossip and the searching eyes of Eris’s mom.
But in the library, she was startled by the sight of another unexpected face. Though it shouldn’t have been unexpected, Avery realized, given that she’d invited the girl herself. Calliope was here, wearing a low-cut dress and talking with Atlas in a way that was unmistakably flirtatious.
“Calliope. I’m so glad you made it,” Avery interrupted, making her way over. “I see you’ve already met my brother,” she added, and finally turned to the boy she couldn’t stop thinking about.
Ever since that near miss with their dad, she and Atlas had tried to avoid each other around the apartment. Avery had scarcely seen Atlas all week. Now she let her eyes travel gratefully over his features, with a wicked sense of having gotten away with something forbidden. He looked as handsome as ever in a navy suit and tie, his hair parted to one side. He’d freshly shaven for the party, which Avery always thought made him seem younger, almost vulnerable. She tried to ignore the way her heart picked up speed at his nearness, but her whole body already felt several degrees warmer, just from knowing he was close enough to touch.
“Oh, you’ve already met Avery?” Atlas turned to Calliope, who tilted her head back and laughed as if this were some delightful coincidence, a lush, throaty laugh that to Avery didn’t feel genuine.
“Avery and I got facials together a few days ago,” the other girl said—and Avery realized how deft her wording was, that she made it sound like an organic, planned excursion rather than the truth, which was that she’d tagged along on Avery’s afternoon with her friends. “She’s the one who invited me tonight.” Calliope turned to Atlas, a hand posed confidently on one hip. “You’re terrible. You never even told me that you had a sister.”
Avery was suddenly hyperaware of how beautiful the other girl was, in a scented, silvery way, all curves and bright eyes and smooth tanned skin. And the way she spoke to Atlas was so casual, almost familiar. Avery felt like she was missing something. She looked back and forth between them.
“I’m sorry. Did you two already know each other?”
“Callie and I met last May, on safari in Tanzania.” Atlas kept trying to catch her gaze, clearly desperate to convey something.
“It’s Calliope. You of all people know how much I hate nicknames! Although, Avery”—Calliope lowered her voice in an attempt at camaraderie—“you should know that James Bond here insisted on using a fake name with me. How utterly mysterious of you, Travis. As if anyone was going to track you from Tanzania to Patagonia.” Calliope laughed again, but Avery didn’t join in.
Patagonia? She knew that Atlas had gone straight from Africa to South America, but she’d always thought he was traveling alone. Maybe she’d misheard.
Just as she was trying to understand, Mr. Fuller’s voice reverberated through the party.
“Hello, everyone!” he said, the sound projected by miniature speakers hovering in the air. “Welcome to the twenty-sixth annual Fuller Investments Gathering. Elizabeth and I are so delighted to welcome you all into our home!” There was a smattering of polite applause. Avery’s mom, dressed in a black sheath with elegant cap sleeves, smiled and waved.
“Excuse me. I have to go check on someone,” Calliope said softly. “I’ll be back,” she added, clearly for Atlas’s benefit.
“What was that all about?” Avery edged forward toward the living room, a polite smile pasted on her face for the benefit of anyone who might be watching.
“It’s the strangest coincidence. I met her in Africa, and now she’s in New York with her mom.”
“How much time did you spend together?” Avery whispered, and Atlas hesitated, clearly unwilling to answer. She bit her lip. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about her?”
Avery had edged a little to the side of the crowd, and Atlas followed as their father droned on, thanking various sponsors and investors in the Dubai project.
“Because it didn’t seem important,” Atlas replied, almost too softly for Avery to hear. “Yes, we traveled together, but only because we were both doing the same thing: going spontaneously from place to place with no real plan.”
“You never hooked up with her?” she hissed, even though she dreaded the answer.
Atlas looked directly into her eyes. “No, I didn’t.”
“As many of you know,” their dad’s voice boomed several octaves louder—he’d obviously turned up the speakers. Avery fell silent, chastened. Had he seen them whispering, even here in this crowded room, and raised the volume in response? “Tonight is a celebration of our newest property, the crown jewel in our portfolio, opening two months from now in Dubai!”
Atlas caught her gaze and jerked his chin, to indicate that he was about to walk deeper into the party. Avery nodded in silent understanding.
As he turned, she reached out to brush a thread from the arm of his jacket. There was nothing there, but she couldn’t help it. It was a final moment of privacy before she let go of him; a small, secret gesture of ownership, as if to remind herself that he was hers, and there was no letting go.
He smiled at her touch before disappearing into the crowd. With a monumental effort, Avery turned her attention back to her father.
“It is my great joy to present to you, The Mirrors!” Pierson gestured toward the ceiling. Gone was the holographic snowy sky, replaced by the blueprints of the new tower, which were projected in a tangle of lines and angles and curves. The schematic glowed like a living thing.
“The Mirrors derives its name from the fact that it is, in fact, two separate towers, one light and one dark. Polar opposites, like night and day. Neither of which has meaning without the other, like so many things in our world.”
He went on to explain the tower, how the original vision for it had come from chess pieces, but Avery wasn’t listening. She was looking up at her father’s schematics. Light and dark. Good and evil. Truth and lies. She knew plenty about contradictions right now, with her seemingly perfect life that was riddled with dark secrets.
She heard everyone in the room whispering about the Tower, calling it gorgeous, a dreamscape. They couldn’t wait to see it. Most of them were going to the black-and-white ball in honor of its launch, their private charters all booked months ago; just like they’d all gone to Rio four years ago, or Hong Kong a decade ago. For some reason, Avery didn’t want to go anymore.
Atlas’s name sliced through her consciousness, and there was more applause. Avery blinked, startled. Across the room, Atlas looked just as confused as she was.